I've got a couple of confessions to make that might put my query into, well, context.
First of all, pretty much my sole exposure to Plastic Man has been in the old JLA trades. We liked him on the whole. The kids liked him because he was funny, I liked him because there was actually a lot of subtlety to his portrayal in that series. I have no idea whether that's typical, or whether he was a different guy there than he has ever been anywhere else, or what the situation was.
Second...okay, yeah, I'll admit it. Sometimes I read Scans Daily. Mostly for the older stuff, but I'll also look at entries featuring newer comics if I don't happen to get them.
So anyway, someone printed this from a recent Plas appearance, and I'm a little confused. This just doesn't seem, well, right. Eel was hardly an enlightened sort when it came to women. Words like "broad" were just part of his vocabulary. He didn't treat the women (or the kids) in his life all that well, and there's a scene in one book where he impersonates Barda's dress that makes me impressed with his resilience that he's still alive.
But, well, this is tacky.
Plastic Man may have been something of a sleaze, and certainly never a gentleman, but he also had a sort of noir gallantry about him. This actually makes me a little uncomfortable, and I'm really not that easy to make uncomfortable. Possibly this is because he's a character my kids liked a lot (he's designed that way, honestly--stretchy guy who fights crime by changing into doofy shapes and quips a lot), I don't know. I would be interested in hearing whether there's more to the story that would put this into a better context.
2 comments:
I've not read this book, but Plas only really became a kid-friendly hero (as far as I can recall) after the 80s cartoon. The original Plastic Man stories are deeply weird.
No, there isn't really any context. That was just sorta a one-panel gag--or maybe the climax of a three to four panel sequence--from 2003 prestige format one-shot JLA: Welcome To The Working Week by Patton Oswalt and...Patrick Gleason.
It's the story of a JLA fanboy/zine writer who finds himself in the JLA watchtower, and hides out there for a week, reporting to the reader on what he saw there.
A lot of scenes just kind of fly by, like this one (later, Plas, Heckler and Ambush Bug throw a party, for example), as the protagonist isn't even a Leaguer, but an observer of the League.
I actually think the Barda dress one was more sleazy, since he was literally all over. Here he's not even touching Ivy, except in the arms and legs.
The "poke" comment does sound like a threat to sexualy assault her, but he's obviously kidding. Is it funny? God no, but he--or, here, Oswalt--might just have a terrible sense of humor.
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